Cutera Inc. CUTR, a Californian provider of dermatology equipment, said Wednesday it’s terminating its executive chairman Daniel Plants and chief executive David Mowry for cause, on the recommendation of a special committee and the majority of its board. The move comes just days after Plants and Mowry issued a statement seeking the removal of five members of the board over concerns that they haven’t made progress on a CEO succession plan. The board said Wednesday it has appointed one of those members, Sheila A. Hopkins, as interim CEO, and another, Janet D. Widmann, as independent chair effective immediately. A search for a permanent CEO has begun. Plants and Mowry had called for the removal of Gregory Barrett, Timothy O’Shea and Juliane Park along with Hopkins and Widmann. The dispute centers around the CEO succession plan which the board started to explore last November, according to Wednesday’s release. “Mr. Plants strongly recommended the immediate termination of Mr. Mowry and indicated that he wanted to succeed him as the Company’s next CEO,” said the release. “This followed a previous attempt by Mr. Plants to gain the CEO role in February 2021 by recommending removing Mr. Mowry.” The board instead decided to seek an external candidate, at which point, “in an apparent campaign to seize control of the Company, Mr. Mowry and Mr. Plants issued a press release in which they disclosed — and blatantly mischaracterized in a defamatory manner — highly confidential internal deliberations of the Board in direct violation of their employment agreements and their fiduciary duties as directors and officers under Delaware law,” said the release. The unusual boardroom brawl has caused the company to withdraw its full-year guidance. The stock was not active premarket, but has fallen 59% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has fallen 7%.
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